Refrigerated display cases for beverage containers, and the like, generally include vertically aligned rows of racks, commonly called glide racks, upon which the beverage containers are loaded. The beverage containers may be cans or bottles of any size and the width of the glide rack rows are adjusted accordingly to accommodate each particular container. The glide rack includes a plurality of rows extending from the front of the glide rack to the rear thereof. Each row may then be loaded with rows of beverage containers extending from the front of the display case to the rear of the display case. Each glide rack is disposed within the refrigerated display case at an angle of approximately five to twelve degrees. Thus, when the lead beverage container is removed from the row by a customer, the next beverage container will move forward to occupy the forwardmost position, and the remainder of the row of beverage containers will follow. In this manner, there is always a beverage container at the front of each row of the glide rack ready to be dispensed to a customer.
The smooth sliding surface of the glide rack soon wears off, however, thus creating more friction as the beverage containers slide thereon such the plastic sliding surface of the glide rack becomes more roughened. This in turn creates more problems as the beverage containers may fall over, tip, rotate, occasionally open and spill. The repeated sliding along the roughened sliding surface and the beverage containers tipping and spilling creates a worn and unusable glide rack within only three to four months of use. Therefore, it has generally been necessary to completely replace the entire glide rack once it reached this point of wear and tear, resulting in costly and repeated expenditures.
To avoid the drawbacks of conventional glide racks, another alternative for merchandising bottles for display and purchase is an overhead support system, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,401,221 to Suttles and U.S. Pat. No. 4,318,485 to Clement. In these types of systems, an overhead support track having a pair of rails is used to receive the neck flange of the bottle to be displayed. The bottles are inserted from the rear and slide forward under gravity feed due to the angle of the support track.
In some of these prior art configurations, the front end of the track is sloped upwardly so as to retard the forward motion of the bottles and to present the lead bottle to the customer. As a result, the bottom of the lead bottle is kicked out in a forward direction due to the force from the bottles therebehind, thereby presenting an unorganized merchandising display of the bottles. In addition, these types prior art systems require the customer to grasp the bottle by the bottom area and pull upwards in order to remove the bottle neck from the prior art track that holds it. This makes it more difficult for the customer to remove a bottle from the display. Further, should the customer change his mind about his beverage selection, it is extremely difficult to reinsert the bottle into the track from the front thereof.
In another prior art configuration, a fixed stirrup-like structure at the forward end of the track catches and supports the lead bottle, which no longer is supported by the track. This system cannot readily accommodate bottles of different heights. Further, due to the assembly of the display units of the prior art, should a single track need to be replaced, it is necessary to disassemble an entire shelf in order to do so.